


For Cause

by Lake (beyond_belief)



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: Community: tsn_kinkmeme, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-22
Updated: 2011-01-22
Packaged: 2017-10-14 23:55:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/154845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beyond_belief/pseuds/Lake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the tsn_kinkmeme prompt: I like the small dynamic between these two. She seems to actually understand him and he seems to genuinely respect her opinion. What would have happened if she had said yes to dinner with him in the final scene?</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Cause

She knocks gently on the glass, but Mark doesn’t look up. “Marilyn Delpy said I could stay,” he calls.

“It’s me.”

He glances over his shoulder at her. “Oh. Do - do I need to leave?”

Marilyn shakes her head. “No, I - I thought I might take you up on that dinner invitation. If it still stands.” She pauses. “I’m a tiny bit jealous that Sy and the others went for steak without me.”

“I can buy you a better steak than they could afford,” Mark replies, completely without self-consciousness at how it sounds. “Let me just pack up my computer.”

She stands with her back pressed against the door, holding it open, as Mark slides his laptop into the case and yanks - not pulls, yanks - his black hoodie back over the wrinkled button-down. She thinks briefly about asking what his resistance is to clothes that indicate actually being a grown-up, but knows that’s the answer right there. It’s all part of his Facebook image.

 _Too cool for school,_ she thinks, and chuckles to herself.

“What?” Mark asks, catching her. Marilyn lets her gaze flicker obviously up and down his body, and he shrugs. “Eduardo was always the one who wore suits.”

“If this were going to trial,” and here she keeps her voice soft, “you’d have to wear a suit. Every day. Sy would insist on it.”

Mark sounds bitter when he says, “Then I guess it’s a good thing we’re going to settle.”

She resists the urge to roll her eyes.

Mark shoulders his bag. “Um, did you need to get your car?”

“Not if you’re willing to drive me back here when we’re done.” She doesn’t even know where they’re going.

“That will be fine.”

Mark’s car is distinctly un-expensive, which she’s surprised about for around ten seconds, until she realizes that it totally fits with his image, right down to the way he hunches slightly over the steering wheel. “I can understand not wanting something ostentatious, but you could at least drive a Lexus,” she says after a few minutes of driving in silence, and Mark laughs. It’s a weird noise, and Marilyn realizes that for all the hours she’s spent in various meeting rooms and offices with Mark, she’s never heard him laugh.

“Peter bought me an SUV of some sort right when he first invested, but I hated driving it. You could have fit like, three of these inside it. I really didn’t want to be driving a tank around Palo Alto. It’s not a war zone.”

Marilyn grins. “I think there’s some individuals who would like to argue that with you. What did you do with the SUV?”

“Gave it back.”

“What did Peter say?” She’s met Peter once, when they’d deposed him as part of the Saverin suit, and she’d gotten the impression that he would probably stare at Mark like he was crazy should Mark try to return anything.

“He said okay, but he looked at me like - I don’t know, like I’d grown an extra head or something.” He turns into the Sundance lot. “Is this okay?”

She looks out the window at the building. “Never been.”

The valet calls Mark by name as he hands over the keys, and Marilyn raises an eyebrow. “Business meetings,” he says with a shrug. “Like, one a week.”

The hostess leads them to a dim corner booth, setting thick menus on the table. “Whatever you want to get,” Mark tells her. “Seriously. I appreciate the work you’ve done for me. And how honest you’ve been.”

“Are people usually dishonest with you?”

“Yes.” There’s a pause, during which Mark looks as though he’s re-thinking his answer. “Wait. It’s not as though they’re lying to me. It’s that they’re trying to put their honesty in the most positive light, and when it’s a harsh truth...” He makes a small, annoyed gesture with the hand not holding the menu.

Marilyn nods. A waitress appears, and she orders a cosmo. Mark orders a draft beer.

“You can ask me whatever you want, you know,” he says when they’re alone again. “As long as we’re off the record.”

That’s totally Mark telling a joke. She laughs and shakes her head. “All right.” She decides to ask about all the ridiculous Facebook rumors she’s heard. “What about quitting Facebook, is it true that you have to wait two weeks, and the site emails every day to ask if you’re sure?”

Mark snorts. “That’s because people would delete their profiles, and then change their minds right away and email us begging to get their profiles and pictures and all their other stuff back. So now we make them wait.”

“And wait, and wait.”

“But it works. Eighty-seven percent of users who delete their profiles come back within three days, and another eight percent come back within a week.”

“And the other five percent?”

“Three percent come back at the end of the two-week window. The other two...” He shrugs. “Can’t stop everyone from leaving. Some come back with new accounts after a while. After like, their mom says, ‘Why aren’t you on Facebook?’ and shames them into it or something.”

“What about the rumor where no one can deny your personal friend requests?”

Mark laughs, openly. His nose scrunches up and his head tilts back. “Totally false,” he assures her. “You could deny me.”

She knows he doesn’t mean it how it sounds, and so ignores the double meaning her brain supplies. He’s not hitting on her. She’s pretty sure that most of his emotional processes right now are stuck on Saverin and that string of depositions.

His face slips back into inscrutability as their drinks arrive and they order food, and then he looks at her shrewdly. “Tell me again why I’m going to settle with the Winklevosses.”

“So that they shut up and leave you alone,” Marilyn says, going for the direct answer.

“It will look like I’m settling because they’re right. They’re not right. I didn’t steal their idea. I had a _better_ one.”

“Mark. Pay them, and they’ll go away.”

He grimaces, and then takes a drink of his beer. “It’s stupid.”

“I don’t disagree.”

“What about Eduardo?” He asks it so softly that Marilyn’s not sure she’s heard right. “Do I just - settle? You know, I see the looks that Sy and Gretchen trade. Those ‘why are we even here’ looks. Like it’s a foregone conclusion that I’ll pay Eduardo what he’s owed.”

“I think you just answered your own question.” She sips her drink, then curls her hands around the stem of the glass. “Can I say something without you getting upset?”

He nods.

“I don’t think you and Eduardo need lawyers. I think you need a relationship counselor.”

Mark shifts restlessly and then leans back against the padded booth. “That’s what my mom said when I told her about the lawsuit.”

“Did your parents ever meet Eduardo?”

“Yeah. The summer between my freshman and sophomore year, he flew back from Miami before the dorms were open to move in, and he stayed at our house for like a week.” Something softens in his face. He looks almost wistful. “Do you think I’ve made bad choices?”

Were this anyone else, Marilyn might reach across the table and squeeze their hand. Instead she says, “You’re not the first person to make those choices, Mark, and you won’t be the last. What matters is how you live with them.”

“Are you sure you’re really a lawyer, and not an undercover therapist that Sy’s brought in to assess my mental state? Or worse, Gretchen?”

She shakes her head with a laugh. “I’m on your side.”

“You haven’t given me your opinion on a settlement. With Wardo.” A muscle jumps in his jaw. He swallows. “With Eduardo, I mean.”

Marilyn leans forward slightly. “Because we seem to have built a measure of trust here, I am going to tell you exactly what I think. Here it is: you need to pay him. You’re going to pay him. Because you know it was a dick move, Mark. It was a dirty way to get him out of the company. I’m inclined to believe it wasn’t entirely your idea, but I don’t care if it was yours, or Sean Parker’s, or Peter Thiel’s. You’re going to settle. There’s no question.”

Mark doesn’t reply. He stares down at his hands.

“All he wanted from you was an apology,” she says quietly. “He’s still waiting for one.”

Mark’s nodding. His voice is thick when he says, “I’ll pay. I’ll give him more than he’s asked for.”

She twists her glass, seeing for the first time that Mark will likely never be able to say he’s sorry out loud and to Eduardo’s face. He will try to apologise with money instead. She feels sorry for him. Sorry for the both of them. She wouldn’t have specialized in _voire dire_ if she wasn’t exceptional at reading people, and all Eduardo wants is for Mark to say that he’d take it back if he could, that they can be friends again, that they can be what they used to.

She can also see that Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t care much for looking into the past. All his attention is focused on _forward_ , and Eduardo has been out of his field of vision for too long.

“Tell me you’ll at least think about apologizing to him,” she says to Mark, making the words as firm as she can. “Five days from now, five months, five years. Just tell me you’ll think about it.”

“I will,” he answers, but he won’t meet her eyes as he says it, and it’s the emptiest promise Marilyn thinks she’s ever heard.


End file.
